As year-round racing in the San Francisco Bay Area collapsed around them, some jockeys and trainers hit the highway this winter in search of fresh opportunities at Santa Anita, hoping to gain a foothold on the competitive Southern California thoroughbred circuit.

It won’t be easy. But jockey William Antongeorgi III could take a big step Saturday.

Antongeorgi — “Billy” to his friends — likes his chances of winning with a 5-year-old gelding named Clovisconnection in the $125,000 Don Valpredo California Cup Sprint, one of the five California Cup races that make up Santa Anita’s annual card of stakes for state-bred horses.

“That would be a good springboard for us to get rolling down here,” Antongeorgi said of Clovisconnection’s race. “If he wins, it would be a good showcase for us to get more business.”

Antongeorgi has struggled to find business, let alone the winner’s circle, so far at Santa Anita. The same is true for fellow Northern California transplants Frank Alvarado — with whom Antongeorgi shares an agent, Fernando Navarro — and Assael Espinoza and Adrian Castellanos. Combined, they have two victories from 37 starts at the eight-day-old meet.

Blame the jockeys’ shortage of wins on the failure of many of the Northern California horses they’re riding to hold their own against Santa Anita runners. For those whose previous race was at Pleasanton, the only wins at Santa Anita have come in races restricted to northern horses. In 26 races when they’ve had to compete against southern horses, the northerners have won ... none.

Even if the northern horses start to do better after more training and racing on an unfamiliar track, it’s a hard time of year for riders to join the Santa Anita jockey colony, with international star Frankie Dettori, North American leader Flavien Prat and Canadian champion Kazushi Kimura wintering here and solidifying a local top 10 that includes Juan Hernandez, Antonio Fresu and Antonio Rispoli.

“But I feel we can fit in anywhere,” Antongeorgi said. “It’s just all about getting the right opportunities. We’ve just got to get out there every day and hustle, getting on the morning track (exercising horses) and working.”

It’s a challenging situation all around for horses and humans who thrived in the Bay Area before Golden Gate Fields was closed in mid-2024 by the Stronach Group, which also owns Santa Anita, and the Pleasanton fairgrounds track’s bid to replace Golden Gate as the area’s racing hub attracted so little fan interest last fall that no dates there were sought for 2025. For now, the Northern California thoroughbred racing schedule for this year is reduced to the summer county-fairs circuit. Even that is endangered by a plan to close Pleasanton as a stabling and training center in March if the number of horses there falls below 500.

“It was definitely hard,” Antongeorgi said of the past year. “First we had to deal with the Golden Gate closure. Then we thought everything was going to be OK with Pleasanton. For myself, Pleasanton was perfect, because I live in Livermore, which is right next door.

“Then they only gave (Pleasanton) two months, and gave us a week’s notice (of the end of Pleasanton) before we were supposed to start racing on Dec. 26th. We basically had the rug pulled out from under us, all the horsemen up there.

“It’s mixed emotions — angry and sad,” said Antongeorgi, who isn’t sure whom to blame. “I felt it was done very wrong. Everybody involved basically lost a job. We had to pick up and move somewhere. I’ve already heard a few jocks have retired and moved on to do other stuff. We’re adapting. That’s why we’re here. We keep pushing forward.”

Antongeorgi, 37, grew up in Long Island, N.Y., and Kentucky, his father a jockey and his mother a trainer of show jumpers. He started galloping racehorses after a move to San Diego, and won a race on the first try with a filly called Five O’Clock at Hollywood Park despite his left boot coming out of the iron early in the 7-furlong sprint. For the past decade, he has been a fixture at the Northern California tracks.

Having to go somewhere this winter, he chose Santa Anita because it keeps him relatively close to his wife, Jen, and three children, because he and the trainers here know each other, and because he wanted to ride Clovisconnection in the Cal Cup.

The 6-furlong Cal Cup Sprint is a tough spot, even though two-time winner The Chosen Vron is taking a break from racing. The five-horse field is led by Big City Lights (Kimura riding), whose six defeats in 12 career starts include four seconds to The Chosen Vron.

But Clovisconnection, trained by Blaine Wright, was a competitive third at this level the last time he raced in Southern California, and his past four starts include three sub-$100,000 stakes wins at Pleasanton and Fresno, running his career record to 11 for 17.

“He’s a super-nice horse,” Antongeorgi said. “I think he fits really well in there.”

A win would be Antongeorgi’s first of the season at Santa Anita.

“That would be a good way to kind of break in,” he, “especially after everything we’ve gone through.”

Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti